


it's in your head

by lassiewrites (allthegoodusernamesarealwaysgone)



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Skul & Vile have PTSD, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 09:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14871464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthegoodusernamesarealwaysgone/pseuds/lassiewrites
Summary: He wants to kill them. Itches for it; it’s killing him to stand still. He’s never been very good at waiting. And with every moment that ticks past, as he watches them barely move and barely speak in their little camp that’s suddenly a lot less safer, he thinks of a minute spent waiting for them in Serpine’s castle. The little mantra, repeated silently to himself over and over and over again to chase down the choking terror.They’ll come. They’ll come. They’ll come.They didn’t.





	it's in your head

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't gonna post this but a couple of friends insisted I should, so here it is. 
> 
> AKA the one where Skulduggery hasn't quite forgiven his friends for not rescuing him, and Lord Vile wants revenge.
> 
>  
> 
> Title from this song, which is what I was listening to while writing this, because I am spectacularly shitty at naming things.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Q0Ng61bT4

He goes back to the army, because fighting is what he does.

 

Well. That’s not exactly true. The first thing he does is go back to the house. He doesn’t want to - knows, really, that Serpine won’t have let any part of him go undamaged, won’t have left any part of his life without a great big dirty mark all over it - but he goes anyway, keeping out of sight as much as possible and stealing clothes from a peasant’s laundry line like a common thief. 

 

The house he spent the past thirty years living in, the house his wife made a home, the house his child was born in - it’s unrecognisable. Serpine must have had it torched - the foundations are still there, visible among all the rubble, but what little is left is a broken, blackened ruin. 

_Just like him._

He crouches there for hours, among the bricks and the long-abandoned remains of the furniture she had picked out, and he doesn’t cry. Can’t cry. 

He doesn’t even realise he’s screaming.

### 

He watches their backs while they sleep, and they think nothing of it.

Many years later, when he talks about his apparent miraculous return from the dead, he’ll say that he doesn’t remember rejoining the army, that he’s old and it’s a time he doesn’t much care to recall. But right now all he can think about is their faces when he was reunited with them. The horror, the disbelief at the sight of the bare skull where his own face should’ve been. The joy and relief when they recognised his voice, when he answered enough of their questions to convince them, finally, that he was who he claimed to be. The way Ghastly had hugged him, and how Shudder had clapped him on the shoulder, and how they’d all gotten very, very drunk to celebrate something not one of them could understand.

And he’d felt nothing.

That happens more often now, long periods of being...vacant. He looks up from a moment of being distracted and discovers hours have passed. He makes a joke at one of them, but it doesn’t come out right - not enough humour and too many sharp edges.

They’ve slipped into the habit of keeping him company during the long night hours, taking turns to sit opposite him in the soft glow of the banked campfire, occasionally making idle conversation, but more and more often, falling silent as he fails to respond. He doesn’t care. 

His eyes fall on Saracen Rue, who’s fallen into a doze against his pack, the grass stem he’s been chewing sticking out from between his lips. Anger, as white hot as Serpine’s branding iron and so sudden it startles him, twists in his empty chest. They’ve been winning recently, victory after victory, and after every battle, Saracen taps his nose and tells them all that he knew they’d win this one. I know things, mocks the voice in his head. But I didn’t know where you were, did I? I didn’t know they were in danger. I didn’t know you were dying.

A stray ember from one of the burning logs hits the floor and the movement draws his eye, but it doesn’t catch. It just burns out against the dirt, and he watches it flicker and go dark. Flames crawling up his legs, the scent of burning flesh. He doesn’t like fire anymore. But it still listens to him. A twitch of his finger, and the corner of Saracen’s threadbare travelling blanket would go up in smoke. 

He could send the entire camp sky high, right now, and nobody would be any the wiser. Soldiers go missing in action all the time. _They’d never know…_

Saracen stirs. Grunts. The spell breaks.

He clenches his hand into a fist, picks up his rifle, and heads out to check the perimeter.

### 

Abyssinia aims the rifle - his own rifle, lovingly maintained and polished to a gleam - at his face, giggling, and pulls the trigger.

She’s so small, deceptively delicate to look at, but she doesn’t once take her eyes off him even as her body jerks back from the recoil. 

The shadows rear up in front of him in a solid wall and swallow the bullet. Then he spits it back to her, slower.

She catches it, the giggle becoming a full-bodied laugh, and he’s laughing with her, harder than he has in a long time. He takes the rifle back from her and reloads.

“You didn’t let me get you once,” she pouts, sidling closer and leaning into his side. “I almost feel inadequate.”

He hums contentedly, holding out his arm to wrap around her. “You’ve had all afternoon to get me. Maybe you’re just a bad shot.”

She rests her chin on his shoulder, sticking to him like a limpet. “Have you thought anymore about what I said?”

Ah. Her great plan. Walking away from the Dead Men for good. Changing sides. It’s like she doesn’t know him at all.  
He doesn’t answer her. She doesn’t like that, and her eyes narrow, her fingernails digging into his ribs, her voice gone sharp. “I’m talking to you.”

“I’ve thought about it,” he says mildly. He doesn’t want to fight. Not now, not after he’s had such a good day with her. He’s so tired of fighting with her. 

“And?” she prompts. “You’re wasted here. I keep telling you. You’re bored - I can tell you’re bored, I know you - and you wouldn’t have to hide this, there.” 

Her free hand swirls gently through the shadows that twist and eddy around him, subconsciously, without him even thinking about it. She seems to like them. He can’t remember not having to hide his necromancy before.

“And what would you do once Mevolent took over everything, hmm?” 

It’s an old argument. She’s made no secret of the fact that she thinks he’s wasting his time fighting this war - on this side, at least. He’s lost count of the amount of times Ghastly has told him he should keep away from her - “It’s like China all over again,” with that frown of disapproval on his face, whenever her name is mentioned.

She stops digging her nails into his ribs and brushes her fingers soothingly over the phantom ache he can already feel there. Sometimes she makes him forget that he doesn’t have skin. She leans up to kiss him, and he lets her.

“We do whatever we want to do, my love,” she murmurs, linking her arms around his neck. “Get rid of Mevolent, even. We could make sure nobody hurts you again. Don’t you want to rule the world?”

He’s not sure why Ghastly’s face, still wearing that irritating, disapproving expression, pops into his head at that moment, but it does. He tenses, and Abyssinia sighs like he’s let her down immensely and pulls away from him. “Or not. You disappoint me, Skulduggery.”

She starts to walk away, and part of him wants to call out for her, to tell her that’s not true, that he loves her. That he knows she wants what’s best for him, of course he does. 

But he doesn’t do any of that. He watches her go, and then slips the strap of his rifle over his shoulder and tags along behind.

### 

It almost surprised him, the strength of the thrill that runs through him when Mevolent sends him to Denmark. He almost resisted - he’s spent the past few months putting the fear of god into sanctuary troops in a godforsaken stretch of central Africa, and having a perfectly good time doing it. Replacing Baron Vengeous - apparently injured in some nameless battle Vile doesn’t care much about - had almost felt like an insult. And then Mevolent had mentioned that the Dead Men were there.

They haven’t spotted him yet. The sanctuary forces have been doing well here, pockets of insurgents smashing through line after line of Mevolent’s faceless defenders. And now it makes sense why.

He realises as he watches the little shapes move around the soft glow of a campfire up ahead that he doesn’t actually know how long it’s been since he saw them last. Time, for him, runs into a single stream of battles after battles after battles, each one indistinguishable from the next. He doesn’t know where they’ve been, or what they’ve been doing. Mevolent isn’t stupid - he knows how easily Vile gets bored, and how destructive he becomes without something to do - and he’s kept him well occupied, commanding front line troops.

Movement ahead disturbs the undergrowth. A sentry, young and unsuspecting, emerges into the moonlight, carrying a musket and moving at a slow stroll. He doesn’t even have time to spot the spear of darkness that ends his life before Vile buries it in his throat.

### 

There’s a moment, when he steps out of a swirl of darkness and into the very centre of their safe little camp, where nobody moves. The time it takes them to react is almost laughable to him. And then they converge on him like gannets, and he laughs. Gunshots and the fizz of thrown magic explode around him; something whooshes past his ear and he hears a scream from behind him, but doesn’t turn to see who the projectile hit. He gives them a circle around him, a foot or so, enough to make it a challenge, and he fights. And when they get close enough to step over the edge of that circle, he ends their pitiful lives with a wave of his hand. 

Sometimes, it occurs to him that he didn’t always enjoy killing this much. He’s pretty sure that feeling of satisfaction in the belly he no longer has didn’t always fill him as he watches a stranger’s final breath bubble out of bloodstained lips. Abyssinia praises him for it, when their tasks allow them to collide, and sometimes, he remembers vaguely that once, that felt wrong.

Once. Now, he’s in love with it. The blood, the death, the violence. Every fallen soldier bleeding life into his magic, making him stronger. He doesn’t feel weak or afraid anymore. 

And then something punctures his armour at the shoulder, and a sharp blade’s edge scrapes against his rib, and he’s pretty sure he yelps. The placement of the dagger tells him his attacker was aiming for his heart, and even as he starts berating himself for letting the bastard get that close, he swings round and lets off a concentrated blast of sharpened shadow slivers. They hit with enough force to knock the would-be assailant to the floor, and he catches a glimpse of red hair, freckles - Larrikin - but can’t afford to stop and look or even think because no sooner has Larrikin hit the floor than Shudder lets out an almighty roar and the gist hurtles, pale and screaming, face contorted with hatred, from his chest. 

Vile turns to face it. It occurs to him, in a flash as he deflects an attack from the gist and swipes away an energy ball from Dexter, that Larrikin might get back up and come at him from behind again. But - no. That many puncture wounds at such point-blank range...he’s incapacitated, at least, if not dead, and that thought is oddly reassuring. He’s pretty sure Larrikin couldn’t kill him. But there’s nothing worse than -

_Serpine’s footsteps circling. Moving around behind him. Panic. Binding sigils on the cuffs. Can’t turn his head can’t_

Ghastly charges from left field, and it’s a move as familiar as his wife’s face once was, one they’ve been using since they were boys together and Ghastly first taught him to box. He turns into it more from muscle memory than conscious choice, and Ghastly feints at the last minute and feeds him a faceful of fire instead. _Smoke in his lungs. Choking. Screaming. Eyes watering. No pain like it_

He lashes out, and his armor grows spikes where his fist connects. He doubts he’s punctured through Ghastly’s armor enough to do any real damage, but the blow knocks him flat, and Vile takes his attention off him for a moment as Shudder’s gist claws and swipes at him. _Begging. Pleading. Pride gone. Family gone. I’ll tell you anything, just make it stop. Serpine laughing. Never wanted information. Hopeless. Dying._

He lashes out, and the shadows go shooting off into the undergrowth, tearing through bushes. When he looks up, he’s alone. Not far from the camp - his armour’s still cold from all those deaths - but.

He fled. Or rather, his magic fled for him. He’s not even sure where he’s shadow-walked to. 

Embarrassment floods him with fury hot on its tail. He’s never run from a battle, not in all the time he’s served with Mevolent, and not before. He gives his head a hard shake, trying to dislodge the image of Serpine’s laughing green eyes and razor-sharp knife blade from his mind, and sets his jaw. 

### 

This time, he watches them from a distance. 

He watches them gather up the scattered remains of the men he killed and bury them, working in silence to dig and fill a mass grave. He homes in, without thinking about it, on the faces he recognises - Ghastly, scarred and surly; Dexter Vex with energy crackling restlessly between his fingertips; Erskine Ravel, hard-faced and chewing distractedly at his thumbnail every time he stops to rest. He watches them form a perimeter from the men that are left; he watches them circle the metaphorical wagons and settle in for a long night. And he doesn’t move.

He keeps thinking about the mass grave. Such effort, on behalf of these men, Danish men they didn’t even really know. 

Did they go to such effort for him? Did he have a funeral? Did they still bother, when there was no body to bury?

He’s not sure. 

He wants to kill them. Itches for it; it’s killing him to stand still. He’s never been very good at waiting. And with every moment that ticks past, as he watches them barely move and barely speak in their little camp that’s suddenly a lot less safer, he thinks of a minute spent waiting for them in Serpine’s castle. The little mantra, repeated silently to himself over and over and over again to chase down the choking terror. _They’ll come. They’ll come. They’ll come._

They didn’t.

He wonders if that’s what they’re feeling now, trapped up there. Waiting for his attack. Knowing they’re helpless, that they can’t stop him. 

He stays still, and silent, and if he could, he’d be smiling.

_Good._

### 

He raises the dead and it’s not hard to know what to make them say.

The woodland fills with the screams of the risen corpses, a dozen voices echoing in a shrill cry what he murmurs into the darkness. 

__

Where are you?

Why won’t you help me?

Please. Please. It hurts.

He sees a figure stand up and head in his direction, and Ghastly leaps forward to grab the soldier and pull him back. Sees how pale he turns despite his scars when the next scream is of his name. 

Vile stays still, and waits, and watches.

And the corpses scream.

### 

He’s out of patience by the following night, and he sends them in to attack. 

Maybe it’s cowardice that he doesn’t go himself. Maybe it's not. He certainly wants to. Wants to get up close with every one of them and watch the light drain out of them. But he’s not good at waiting. It would be far too quick. It seems...wrong...to let them flee the world so quickly when he'd lingered for days.

All night, he sends the dead into the campsite. All night, he watches the Dead Men and the remaining Danish soldiers fight them back - exhausted, desperate. No sign of Larrikin. He wonders for a moment what that means, and then decides he doesn’t care.

### 

Dawn comes, and with it, the boat to take the Dead Men back to Ireland. He works this out as he watches it sweep slowly up the inlet, and contemplates sending it to the bottom before it can collect them.

He doesn’t.

They look exhausted, all of them, and the few Danish soldiers left climb into the boat alongside their companions, jostling one another. Nobody wants to be the last one aboard. Nobody wants to be left behind. He wonders if he looked like them before he died - those dark, shadowed eyes, hair slicked to their foreheads with sweat, holding each other upright, dried blood crusted on pale skin. Pitiful, if one were in the habit of feeling pity.

Last chance, says the voice in his head. Last chance to destroy them.

He doesn’t.


End file.
